The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life

William Damon

Apr 2008 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

America’s leading expert on adolescence offers his prescription for instilling a sense of purpose and fulfillment in today’s youth.

Drawing on the revelatory results of a landmark study, William Damon—one of the country's leading writers on the lives of young people, whose book Greater Expectations won the Parents' Choice Award—brilliantly investigates the most pressing issue in the lives of youth today: why so many young people are "failing to launch"—living at home longer, lacking career motivation, struggling to make a timely transition into adulthood, and not yet finding a life pursuit that inspires them.

His groundbreaking study shows that about one-fifth of youth today are thriving—highly engaged in activities they love and developing a clear sense of what they want to do with their lives—but approximately one-fourth are still rudderless, at serious risk of never fulfilling their potential. The largest portion are teetering on the brink, in need of guidance to help them move forward: some are "dabblers" who pursue strings of disconnected interests with no real commitment; others, "dreamers" who have no realistic plans or understanding of what success will require.

What makes the difference? Damon shows that the key ingredient for the highly engaged is that they have developed a clear sense of purpose in their lives that motivates them and gives them direction. Based on in-depth interviews, he takes readers inside the minds of the disengaged and drifting kids and exposes their confusion and anxiety about what they should do with their lives. He then offers compelling portraits of the young people who are thriving and identifies the nine key factors that have made the difference for them, presenting simple but powerful methods that parents and all adults can and must employ in order to cultivate that energized sense of purpose in young people that will launch them on the path to a deeply satisfying and productive life.

Ratings and reviews

I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, I felt there was not much research actually discussed. Plus there was a decided and unacknowledged bias in the direction of conservative spokespeople, such as Rick Warren--not a social scientist, but a Christian evangelist, megachurch leader and writer; Chester Finn, and Diane Ravitch, whom he cites as criticizing our current very regressive federal education policies, without mentioning that they engineered and promoted these policies under George W. Bush in the first place! He also cites no research to support his claim that children benefit from doing things like creating lemonade stands and selling Girl Scout cookies. From personal experience I can say that most children know there's something dishonest about charging people more money for a thing than it cost you to get. Also, many children are put in danger by going door to door selling cookies and candy for their schools and extracurricular activities, and feel pressured to do so anyway by adults. Nevertheless, there is a *little* information in this book that might be useful, related to interviews his team has conducted. I am amazed that Damon has worked with folks widely acknowledged to be leading researchers and highly conscientious scholars, such as Howard Gardner and Mihail Cziksentmihalyi, and yet thinks publishing a book like this as valid social science is acceptable.

About the author

William Damon, a developmental psychologist, is professor of education and chairman of the Department of Education at Brown University. He is the author of The Moral Child.